Stream of Unconsciousness

This is a thought bubble blog. It is for me to write thoughts, argue with myself, and analyze my prejudices and bias. NOTHING in this blog should be assumed to be my actual thoughts or beliefs unless otherwise specifically identified as such.
If you want more useful stuff, read my tax blog:
https://supertaxgenius.blogspot.com/

Sunday, November 18, 2018

I'm taking CHM 110 at Trident Technical College, and I'm uploading documents to share with my fellow students and including useful stuff. This is purely for my college class. I'm going to keep bumping it to the top to make it easy to find.

This is a link to my Lab 4 Lab Report. You might find it useful as a template. I do the tables in Excel so it can calculate for me and then cut and paste to the report. I just change the page numbers in the procedure for that section. Remember to only do ONE example calculation of each type in the calculations section. Then I just print out the cover sheet and staple it to the report. I assume everyone is done with their lab report for 4, BUT, if not - this is for use as a TEMPLATE, not to copy for Lab 4!

Stoichiometry is made more complicated than it needs to be for three reasons. First, the name. Stoichiometry just SOUNDS complicated. Easy solution, don't worry about what it's called. Second and third are harder and are actually the reason it exists at all. Stoichiometry involves things that are too small to see, and too numerous to count. If we could see and count atoms and molecules, stoichiometry would seem as easy as legos, probably even easier (most times your not trying to build the Millenium Falcon and often your just building with two or three different bricks - not so much in bio-chem - but this is 110!)

If I could grab a Chlorine atom and a Sodium atom and smash them together to make salt. Stoichiometry would seem like child's play. I think the key to UNDERSTANDING stoichiometry is to connect it to something you can see. I'm working on a comprehensive example of that which I will publish later. Right now, I'm just going to lay out some simple points to help you grasp what's going on.

First, the grab an atom of Sodium and grab an atom of Chlorine example, while simplistic, is pretty much how it works. To make salt, you need one Chloride atom and one Sodium atom. Na + Cl = NaCl. To make Barium Fluoride, you need 2 Fluorine atoms for every Barium atom. Ba + 2F = BaF2. It's really that simple, except that we need billions upon billions of atoms to make any appreciable amount of a substance.

So, since we can't see the atoms, scientists had to come up with a way to "count" the atoms. They needed some system that could convert something easy to measure into a number of atoms. They came up with a "mole". You can weigh a pure atomic substance, and based on what it is, know exactly how many atoms are in it (or close enough for chemical work - since atoms are so small and you can't see them - a few stray atoms here and there are usually not a big deal).

Scientists know that (using round numbers) 12 grams of Carbon will contain 6.02 x 10^23 atoms. They know this just as we know that 756 grams of large eggs will be 12 eggs or 156 grams of paperclips will be 144 paper clips (I checked). 12 eggs is a "dozen" eggs and 144 paper clips is a "gross" of paper clips. The "mole" is just a way of referring to a specific quantity of something, like a dozen eggs, or a gross of paper clips and using weight to "count" them. A mole is a term referring to a specific number, just like a dozen and a gross. With a little extra work, we can count things using their weight. It's not really useful for eggs in the kitchen, but if I needed to count 1000 eggs, or 10,000 paper clips, knowing that 144 paper clips weighed 156 grams is hugely important. With atoms, it's impossible to count them, so we have the mole.

We use moles for different substances, so we have different weights that equal a mole of them, just like a gross of different items would weigh a different amount.

One "gross" of paperclips would be 144 paper clips and would weigh 156 grams.
One "gross" of eggs would be 144 eggs and would weigh 9072 grams.
One "mole" of eggs would be 6.02 x 10^23 eggs and would weigh 3.79 x 10^25 grams.

So think of moles as kind of like bags of atoms or molecules. A bag of Carbon atoms with 6.02 x 10^23 atoms in it weighs 12 grams. EVERY bag of atoms or molecules will ALWAYS have 6.02 x 10^23 of them in it, so all we need to know is how much a bag of all the substances weighs.

It's critical to be able to take an atom or a molecule and figure out its molecular or formula weight. That's simply figuring out how much a "bag" of the atoms weighs (our bag being a mole). For an atom, it's the atomic weight of the atom from the periodic table.

One bag (mole) of Sodium (Na) atoms contains 6.02 x 10^23 atoms (this number never changes - just like a gross of paper clips will always contain 144 paper clips) and weighs 23 grams (just like that gross of paper clips weighs 156 grams). It's a property of the substance and never changes.

The Atomic Weight or Formula Weight can be written as a ratio 1 mole Na / 23 grams Na, just like we can write for paper clips, 1 gross paper clips / 156 grams paper clips. These can be written upside down as needed to convert grams to moles or moles to grams, just like if I know how many paperclips I have I can use the ratio to figure out what they weigh, or if I know how much they weigh, I can figure out how many I have.

For formulas, the numbers in front of the molecules tell you how many bags (moles) of each you need for each of the ingredients, and how many bags (moles) of the various products you get.

Ba + 2F = BaF2 tells me that I need 2 bags of F for every bag of Ba and when I smush them together I get a bag of BaF2. Each of those bags has 6.02 x 10^23 atoms or molecules in it, and I can figure out how much each one weighs by figuring out their Formula Weights from the periodic table.

For calculation problems, convert grams or atoms to moles (always go through moles) and ratio them according to the numbers from the equation. Thinking of them as bags will help you remember that the term mole isn't magic, it just makes sure you have 2 atoms of F for every atom of Ba in the above formula. You are just using moles because there are a shit ton of atoms involved. I honestly believe that if we made the term "shit-ton" refer to 6.02 x 10^23 of something, and applied it to Chemistry, that everyone would find this a lot easier.

So this probably didn't teach you HOW to do Stoichiometry, but hopefully, it demystified it a little bit.

Keep checking back for updated information and suggestions.
Also feel free to use the Amazon link (the black and white tax book picture) to buy things from Amazon (from which I get a cut) or to buy my tax books.

Keep checking back for updated information and suggestions.
Also feel free to use the Amazon link (the black and white tax book picture) to buy things from Amazon (from which I get a cut) or to buy my tax books.

Thursday, November 15, 2018

I slapped this together to send to someone I met in a bar who was going to Singapore soon. Not exhaustive, but useful if you need some good places to eat, stay and do fun stuff:

Singapore

Where to Stay:

Orchard Road Area, with close walk to either the Orchard or Somerset MRT Station

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Orchard Rd.

Orchard Rd Area:

TONS of shopping above and below ground.

EAT: Ya Kun Kaya Toast is a must do (only eat Kaya Toast from Ya Kun)

Food Court in basement of Paragon Building has a good food court with a Ya Kun Kaya Toast, So Pho So Good, a Dutch Baby Place, Din Tai Fung which are all good food choices.

JiBiru across the street has a great beer selection and good food.

Must Do:

River Cruise – Catch at Clarke Quay. There is a Thirsty Beer Shop in the Liang Shopping Center which is just outside of the Clark Quay Shopping Area (Clark Quay has two walkways that cross in the middle. If you take a left in the middle as you walk away from the river it lead to the Liang Shopping Center across a street. Cross the bridge to Boat Quay and walk along the river for some cool food places

URA Center Model

Chinatown – Might want to set aside at least two days if you are going to be in Singapore for a while. Make sure to see the Buddha Tooth Relic, Heritage Center, Food Street, Maxwell Food Center (best hawker stand), Sri Mirraman Temple, Chinatown Center, URA Center (Singapore City Gallery with huge scale models of the city). Chinatown is the best place to get large volume, really cheap, cool but crappy gifts for people you need to get something for, but don’t want to spend a lot of money on.

Little India – Quick in and out – try eating at a hole in the wall.

Coud Forest Waterfall

Cloud Forest – this is actually in a huge area with giant fake trees, air-conditioned rain forests with water falls and other really cool stuff.

Botanical Gardens – Mainly for the Orchid Gardens

Night Safari – Book ahead and consider a tour. This is one of the few places you need a taxi or bus to get to. They have a pretty cool buffet dinner there.

Explore and don’t be afraid to just wander in some random place for food.

Other things:

Sentosa Island

Casino

River Safari

Singapore Museum

Arab Street

Japanese Gardens

Chinese Gardens

Mt. Faber

Harbour Front

Haw Par Village – almost made this a must do but it’s very weird but huge. It’s basically a crappy statues history of Chinese Myths. The 10 hells exhibit is disturbing and hilarious. It’s very close to an MRT station so you can do it quickly.

Thursday, November 8, 2018

I have a lot to say on this subject but haven't organized my thoughts well. I have notes below the *****, but you should ignore those. I'm just going to use this post as a catch-all for gun thoughts.

My current policy beliefs (only minimal justification here - more later):
1. The Federal government's activities on guns should be limited to preventing states from infringing on the Constitutional right to a gun.
2. I believe the Constitutional right to a gun includes the right of any law abiding citizen to own any gun that is available to the police and National Guard of the State they are a resident. I believe this is the principle behind the "well-regulated militia" and enshrines the right of defense against a tyrannical government as well as self-defense. I think this extends to safely carrying your gun from one state to another in which it is legal, across states where it is not with ZERO risk of prosecution (so long as the gun is safely stored and locked and no more than a few days are spent in the state it isn't legal.)
3. Deprivation of this right beyond a few days prior to initial licensing requires due process. You can't take a gun away without the gun owner having a chance to respond before a proper, impartial authority and doing so must only be for the minimum time needed. Some of this would vary from state to state, but the basic due process idea stands across all of them.

The rest of the list would be at a state level - different states can do different things - and these suggestions would be for my state. Federal assistance would be provided when sales cross state lines or with background checks.

3. We need to find a way to allow solid background checks without unduly restricting the ability of one citizen to sell to another.
4. Concealed carry licenses should enshrine a large amount of training, but be available to most people willing to put in the effort.
5. I have thoughts about a "super" concealed carry where someone who is willing to subject themselves to extensive and intrusive background checks and a ton of training would be allowed to carry their weapon into traditionally "gun-free" zones.
6. Licensing fees should be reasonable and accessible to most people. In principle, if a government assists poor people with access to things like food and healthcare, there should be some process to reduce fees for gun access to poor people (this is a little fuzzy because if you're poor, a gun should be low on the list of "necessities" but who am I to judge a person's priorities.)

Everything below this line is just shorthand notes to think more about.
******

What is Effective Gun Control?

Same guns as cops and NG
Defending against tyranny
Army won't fight us (illegal as well)
States can restrict guns by restricting their police

Enforcing current laws

Keeping guns out of the wrong hands

Preventing mass shootings - what can we do, will it be effective, is it worth the cost.

What would it take to make America a gun-free or low gun society? What would the cost be?

What would it take to eliminate gun violence

Respect for rights

What do we do about idiots with guns (that aren't clinically diagnosable as such)

We glorify violence - even movies and stories with "pacifists" ultimately require them to fight to win out over "evil" or save someone. Peaceful means never work.

Thursday, November 1, 2018

It might be a little early, but I have pretty much settled on the content and methodology of my predictions, so there's really no reason to wait. I obviously reserve the right to revise should there be major events or polling changes between now and the election.

The governor elections are little more than a guess, but the Senate and House I study to a pretty in-depth level. The Senate gets more individual detail simply based upon the number of races to analyze.

I don't pick individual races (though that's almost what you have to do in the Senate). Instead, I predict the makeup of the Senate, House and the number of governors from each party. Independents are included with the party they caucus with or their basic ideology.

Still waiting on 3 Senate Races and 12 House Races.
Could be dead on in the Senate but looks like Dems did better in the House than I predicted, but I still have a chance of staying in my margin of error.

20181108 UPDATE

No movement on House and Senate - gonna be a while.
For the House, the final number will be between 223 and 236. I need 3 of 5 toss-ups to go the R way if I am to stay in the margin of error.
Senate is looking like a 53 - exact match! But it's still plus or minus 3. I can afford one race not going the way it's leaning.
Governors races will be either 26 or 27 Republicans so I got that one within the margin of error (the remaining one will likely go red and make it 27 - so not exact.

In the Corporate world, the responsibility is theoretically there, but to whom and to what end? What’s really missing is accountability. After all, as another adage goes, this one from economics: people respond to incentives. Absent proper incentives, no amount of responsibility overcomes a lack of accountability. True negative incentives do not exist in the Corporate world. CEO’s, CFO’s and Board Members never face any real, personal punishment for their actions. Absent this, normal incentives produce poor behavior in the pursuit of profits. This should not be surprising. Until the decision makers in Corporations face personal accountability, Corporations will place profits over responsibility.

First a little history: The introduction of Limited Liability is one of the great inventions in the world of business. As Deirdre McCloskey discusses in Volume 2 of her seminal work on economic history: Bourgeois Dignity, it is one of the ideas that changed the world. The ability to shield your personal assets from forfeiture due to a business failure was one of the critical factors in the massive expansion of business innovation and revolution that resulted in millions worldwide being lifted out of abject poverty (137). But slowly, over decades, a problem emerged. The Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision essentially bestowed the rights of a person onto Corporations (Collins). We can debate if the decision was right or wrong, but the idea of Corporate “personhood” highlights the great missing piece: you cannot hold a Corporation accountable in the same way you can a person. Certainly, you can fine them both, but try putting a Corporation in prison and the problem becomes clear, as Smith and Howat point out in Justice Inc: “companies have no soul to be damned, no body to kick.” (110).

Corporations have shareholders – being a Corporation encompasses the LEGAL duty to the shareholder to maximize profits and increase the value of the stock. Even with the most ethical of Corporations this requires a short-sighted approach. They are required every quarter to report on the past year’s profit, and then make projections towards the future. Investors and reporters follow these projections with all the fervor of sports scores and election results – and the stock price responds. Corporations respond to incentives – and shareholders are a BIG one. So influential, in fact, that the temptation to cheat becomes almost impossible to ignore. Absent any real repercussions, the inevitable happens – Corporations begin skirting the rules, and then breaking them. The term “Paper Tiger” was coined to describe this: “Developments in the law are making the corporate form more opaque and allowing the agents who animate it to escape individual accountability for their actions.” (Nelson).

A few years ago, a judge did try to hold a Corporation accountable for egregious actions, though in a Quixotic way: He sentenced the Corporation to jail time. As discussed in the article by Farber, “The Judge resorted to this extraordinary sentence, he said, because he didn’t know how else to impose a meaningful punishment on a corporation that could easily afford to pay the maximum fine.” (18). Obviously, the Corporation spent no actual time in prison, despite engaging in a price fixing scheme between Pepsi and Coke resulting in over $1,000,000 in illegal revenues way back in 1988.

One significant recent example: UBER. Not the bad press about a poor culture with regard to employee treatment – though that’s pretty bad as well. What happened was they got hacked. In early 2016, hackers accessed the personal data of over 600,000 drivers and 57 million customers and demanded $100,000 from UBER to delete the data. UBER paid the money, and waited more than a year and a half to inform their drivers of the breach. Now they will pay a settlement of $148,000,000 to all 50 states and the District of Columbia (Bloomberg). This is in addition to past settlements involving misleading advertising for drivers and illegal use of texting. One estimate is that they’ve been sued 433 times. But they keep skirting the law. No Corporate officer went to jail or received a personal fine.

Then there are the banks. Bank of America has been fined 20 times for over 57.9 BILLION dollars. Wells Fargo has been fined 39 times! (Smith and Howat 112) Governments respond to incentives as well. Putting a Corporate officer in jail gets headlines, but fining a company puts money directly into the pockets of government agencies charged with regulating these entities. As Smith and Howat put it: “Public authorities have become addicted to revenues from corporate fines.” In essence, as they further discuss, fines effectively act as a Corporate “get out of jail card.” (112). One can easily see how this leads to MORE bad behavior and not less.

The solution remains as obvious as it is difficult to implement: Hold Corporate officers and boards personally accountable for the actions of their companies. Fine them, jail them or file injunctions against them serving as officers and/or board members. Politics, working out the details and piercing the veil of “plausible deniability” all stand in the way of a successful policy being implemented. Then, once the policy exists, high powered lawyers and political connections will further stand in the way of justice. But there’s no question that the system as it exists now fails to serve the average American.

Corporations and the concept of Limited Liability are the foundations upon which the modern world economy has been built. Billions of people have escaped poverty and First World citizens can access hundreds of modern wonders unimaginable in the past. That makes it important that we not screw the current system up while trying to fix it. Clearly though, the ability of any American to list a dozen Corporate criminals, all of whom escaped real justice, and many of whom are serial offenders makes it obvious that something is very wrong. Until the true decision makers in the Corporate world face PERSONAL repercussions, shareholders will always win over customers and employees.

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

By coincidence, I found myself with 6 of the 7 currently available top tier beers from our ongoing (three years now), highly unscientific Double IPA Blind Taste Testing. Previous results HERE.

We had five tasters trying 6 beers (not ideal for accuracy) but it's all for fun anyway. All beers were fresh (canned within the last month) except the Viridi Rex which was about 2 months old. Here were the results:

Burlington Brewing Company It's Complicated Being a Wizard was a runaway winner.